On the subject of condiments...

Thorn · Mar 17, 2009

Yes, I do. Precisely in the same way.

A catalyst is an agent of change. A cop is specifically charged by society to be an agent of change in such situations. The crime is the reason. The police the catalyst added to the formula to hasten the criminal's change of state.

So when the man in question entered into mutual consensual [and we haven't even addressed that part of it] sexual activity with another - if he committed a transgression against his committed partner [and there would be many who would say he had] - than he put that part of it into the mix and he is responsible for that part of it.

If than your action, which only you can be responsible for, hastened the reaction - even if it was inevitable - than that part of it which is the hastening wouldn't have happened save for your involvement and conscious decision.

When you gave that woman the information you gave her you became an agent of change. Can you articulate a justification, as the catalyst, for the change of her state? Not his, mind you, hers.

You are a bright person who knows up from down. Access the reaction, the change of state, and decide if it was a negative or a positive from her point of view and then ask yourself if she, who did nothing to you, deserved to hear what she heard from you and not him?

Did the change bring more light into the world, or a little more heat?

I'm asking questions here, not judging. It's your reaction. You were the catalyst. I'm asking you to judge, then articulate your conclusions. Just as an officer would have to file a report articulating his justifications for being an agent of change upon arresting someone.

SubmissiveAngel said:

Yes, I agree, but it applies to ALL involved - including you.

It is just as much the catalyst's responsibility for what action the catalyst takes as any other person in the reaction.

Use your analogy, the police officer in arresting someone?

What if the officer arrests someone who didn't deserve to be arrested. He can't articulate in his report a justification for causing someone else's pain/loss of freedom. Is the officer not at fault for being an agent of change in that person's life without sufficient justification to do so? Is it not false arrest? Did that person suffer rightously, as would an actual criminal had he been arrested instead? Will that officer not have consequences to face for his actions?

The question is that while you certainly may have had justification for causing a change of state in jerkoff's life, at what point did you have a justification for causing a change of state in jerkoff's girl-friends life? Your decision effected TWO people lives. You arrested two people, not one.

In shitheads acting as an agent for change YOU may have been culpable for your actions and his 'arresting' you in his placing of that info in her mailbox, but the damage it caused your sister is on him. He arrested two people as well. You and your sister. Maybe he can justify what he did to YOU [probably can't]. What did your sister do to him though?

same-same

marcinny · Mar 17, 2009

SubmissiveAngel said:

SA,

In your place, I would have no doubt that the responsibility stands with him. I would only blame him not myself.

My thinking process would go this way: As long as my sister doesn't know what I am doing, this activity does not practically exist in her universe. As long as I manage to protect her from opening this door, she will never know and she will live a better life.

Now the asshole decides one day to break the Great Wall to expose my sister to the horrors of this world. Is it my fault? No, because what I was doing was in a different universe. What I was doing was protected from her eyes. It was he who introduced her to misery.

Now, yes, this might be too delusional for you guys but it has brought some degree of peace to my mind.

SubmissiveAngel · Mar 17, 2009

thorn, thank you for that committed reply. unfortunately, you seem to be responding largely to something i did not say (i.e. that i am not responsible for the consequences of my actions) but it's always nice to get to know you a little better.

jl defined responsibility as blameworthiness. me, i define responsibility as taking care of ones own business. you appear to define it as the ability to justify ones self. "If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity." JFK

SubmissiveAngel · Mar 17, 2009

marcinny said:

obviously i failed to 'protect her from opening the door'.

it's funny how much control we think we have over what happens, when - in reality - all we can control (and sometimes not so successfully) is ourselves.

Thorn · Mar 17, 2009

SubmissiveAngel said:

Ok. How did I get I supposedly misread you?

I'll ask for clarification some simple questions:

1a) Did you do harm to the wife of shithead when you told her he was fucking around on her?

1b) If so, regardless if anyone else was also responsible, were you also responsible in any way for that harm?

2a) Did shithead do harm to your sister when he told her of your doings?

2b) Is shithead responsible, regardless if anyone else was also responsible, was he also responsible in any way for that harm??

Not simply justify one's self but justify one's self by a known, and socially agreed upon, ethical standard.

If my actions are justified by said standards than society should hold no harm against me for the harm I have done, for I had good reason to do it. [An act of self-defense for instance]

If I stand alone on something, even if I think I am right, I am fully aware that I am not an island and I live in a community that is a society of laws, for better or worse. I don't pretend I should be held blameless for the actions I take that hurt others in such circumstances. Including if my actions take out innocent third parties as collateral damage. Even if my actions were the result of anothers.

Example: If someone starts shooting at me and I start willy-nilly shooting back with a fully automatic weapon and kill 15 innocent people in the process of trying to kill the one person shooting at me I am responsible for the deaths of those 15 innocent people. Not they for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Not ONLY the guy who started shooting at me, because he caused me to open fire on him. ME, for pulling the trigger and firing indiscriminately with reckless and selfish intent for no one else's safety by my own.

Thorn · Mar 17, 2009

SubmissiveAngel said:

But in the case of shithead's wife you didn't fail to keep her from opening the door. You, yourself, kicked the door open.

You know, you.., the only one you have control over. Your choice. No one else's.

You made a conscious decision to become the agent of change that informed her and altered the course of her life. You little catalyst you.

SubmissiveAngel · Mar 17, 2009

you know, when i am trying to figure out what part(s) of something i am responsible for, i look for what are the part(s) i need to fix.

in the case of shithead's girlfriend, i was responsible for apologizing to her for approaching her with ugly information in a bad way, and for removing myself from her life so as to not cause further harm. this included taking responsibility for ending the escapades with shithead.

in the case of my sister, i was responsible for acknowledging that - yes - my whoring activities could result in serious harm to myself, and then coming to an agreement with her about how we would cope with this stressor in our relationship. i was also responsible for removing shithead from my life so he could not cause further damage.

see the common link there? minus shithead, neither of those events would have happened. does that mean he is responsible for my problems? heck no! it means i am responsible for the consequences of keeping a shithead in my life.

hope that helps.

marcinny · Mar 17, 2009

justlooking said:

jl,

Thank you.

It was a great read. From my perspective instead of boring the thread grew more interesting towards the end.

If you're just skiming, it seems that the discussion is going in circles. It is in some ways, but the arguments mature, earn new angles and eventually go the end of the issue.

Many great posts by UG fellow members, but you, jm and Thorn are just extraordinary there.

However, masquerade is the best contributor of the thread. While you guys had the winning position, that thread would have not become what it did without M's opinion. She fought valiantly, skillfully reformulating and reinventing basically the same rigid position, forcing you guys to improve your counter arguments and bring the best of your logic.

I hope Slinky will upgrade it to HOF. It certainly is HOF material and must not be left lost in the archives.

SubmissiveAngel · Mar 17, 2009

Thorn said:

i avoided saying this earlier, but your argument is specious. you'd have to consider what was the catalyst for my actions, which was shithead's shit-heady behavior...but then you's have to consider the catalyst for his actions - heck, coulda been his mom, abandoning him at a young age... catalyst for that was the drug dealer... etc etc.

but, like i said before, i accept responsibility for my actions, thereby absolving you of your duty to prove to me the same. k?

marcinny · Mar 17, 2009

SubmissiveAngel said:

Call me a selfish fuck, but I was using your situation in order to make an implied anology to mine. Just replace "you" with "me" and your sister with my SO.

If someone would tell my SO what I do, I'd blame it on him/her for turning her world upside down. Yes, I bear the ultimate responsibility, but not for engaging in prostitution but for not making enough sure that the information don't get to her.

So, yes, I agree with you when you say: "I am responsible for the consequences of keeping a shithead in my life." I also understand him well when he blames it on you the situation with his wife.

Thorn · Mar 17, 2009

SubmissiveAngel said:

You need to fix the part where you decided it was OK to turn some one's life upside down because someone else, tangentially connected to that person, did something that pissed you off and you could get at him though her.

I'm fucking your boy-friend and he did something to royally piss me off so at this time I have decided not to see him again and "do the right thing" by telling you, his innocent girl-friend, that he is a heel and you should dump him. The fact that this will, coincidentally, also fuck up his life has absolutely nothing to do with it. I am doing this solely to set a sister straight so that you can remove this cancer from your life.

You do realize that is so classic a case of situational ethics to justify a death by ricochet as to be cliche? You played a bank shot and dropped the bullet in the bastard by playing it off his girl-friend.

Don't get me wrong. The fact that it fucked shithead over is not the point. It is the fact that the bullet had to pass through a third, innocent, party to get to him that is the issue.

See the example added above.

Pardon me, 15 innocent people, for shooting you while I tried to protect myself from the person shooting at me.

I'm not the one who needs it. I don't have to live with the consequences of any one's decisions but my own.

It is like when parents decided they don't care for each other very much, in fact they loath each other, and they use the kids as weapons to harm each other.

No... it is even more like when rival gang members, knowing their rival doesn't care much about becoming dead, kill members of their family instead and leave their rival alive because they know they will feel that. "I know YOU don't care if you die, but how about I kill your mother. You'll care about that!"

It is a VERY good thing that you two should never come together again because there is an obvious trend shared between you. I mean this in all the sincerity born in the truth you give to someone you respect who is doing wrong right before your eyes. There is no telling which of you would be the first to pick up the next innocent in your familiar circle and use that person to beat the other about the head.

Everyone both of you knows is safer if you two stay apart.

Thorn · Mar 17, 2009

SubmissiveAngel said:

I'm not in need of absolving. Nor am I trying to prove something at this point.

At this point I am trying to suggest to someone I like and respect that it isn't OK to use other people, particularly innocent other people, to injure someone you are pissed off at simply because they are there and it will work. It is selfish and it is cruel. You didn't help that woman. You used her for your own ends, just as he used your sister for his, and you both did those innocent people a true disservice in the process.

I'd spank you, because you truly deserve one this time, but I'm afraid you'd like it.

SubmissiveAngel · Mar 17, 2009

Thorn said:

my god, you are so theatrical! "turned her life upside down" since when? "innocent girlfriend" where? "glorious detail" my foot.

you are telling a histrionic tale - and then telling me what i need to do in that tale. it's a bit of a conversation killer. stultifies honest dialogue.

justlooking · Mar 17, 2009

marcinny said:

That's exactly how I look at it.

Moreover, SA was presumably doing everything possible to keep her sex work out of her sister's universe. But for Shithead's vindictiveness, there's no reason to doubt that SA could have continued to succeed in her attempts to keep worlds from colliding.

It's Shithead's fault.

(But conversely, it's at least partly SA's fault when she busted Shithead to his wife.)

justme · Mar 17, 2009

justlooking said:

I haven't caugh up with this thread, but I want to interject something here. In this post, and the next few dozen that follow, I think people are conflating a number of issues that are easier to understand if separated.

First of all, while I can be hurt by the truth, I cannot be wronged by it. If someone were to tell me that my fiance had been cheating on me, it would certainly be painful, but I could not find fault with the person for telling me. Even if they were telling me for the purpose of causing me pain, it is the affair itself (and betrayal, self-loathing, etc.) that is the cause, not the fact that I know it. While I could resent the messenger for finding happiness in my pain, I could not resent them for telling me the truth.

Moreover, conditioning on knowledge changes utility for truth. In other words, suppose someone told you that they had knowledge of a fact that would cause you pain and that they would tell you that fact if you liked. Since you cannot control the future, even if you avoided the truth and pain at the time, there would be some possibility of not doing so in the future. Rather than live in self-delusion, I think that most people would and should (normative) choose to deal with the truth as soon as possible. Once people find out about affairs, they tend to wish they had been told sooner and will resent anyone who didn't tell them. Indeed, such people could be considered accessories to the betrayal, delusion, self-loathing, etc.

I don't think we can hold informers accountable for the pain of the informed simply because they told the truth. Now, they might be held accountable for other things (like fucking my fiance and helping her lie to me about it), just not that.

On the other hand, I hope and assume my fiance would feel a little pain were I to be told of her hypothetical affair. Depending on her relationship with the informant, she might be right in feeling wronged. For example if she were to tell her mother about the affair to get advise and her mother turned around and told me, I think that she would have some cause to feel betrayed. On the other hand, if my best friend were to catch her coming out of a hot sheet, I don't think she could really be upset at him if he were to tell me. Clearly what matters here is the relationship between the informer and the shithead, as it were. If the shithead has some reasonable expectation that someone would conspire in their deluding another person, then I think they can feel wronged.

Absolutely a john has a reasonable expectation that his prostitutes will not inform his wife. Indeed, part of their fee is for discretion and professional ethics would dictate that they deliver discretion. JL, alludes to this idea when he talks about being sensitive to confidentiality.

It's far trickier to analyze whether my fiance's affair has a similar expectation of confidentiality. Certainly, there likely isn't any professional ethic that would demand it. I think that you would have to evaluate these expectations on a case by case basis. For example, if she lied to her affair and denied my existence, I think that she would have erased any reasonable expectation that he not tell me once he found out she was engaged. If he was a friend of mine, I think that she would have to know that his loyalty would be a serious impediment to confidentiality. If, on and he only told me to fuck her over, I think she could reasonably feel like he wronged her.

One thing to keep in mind when analyzing rational expectations for confidentiality in an affair is that any breach in that confidentiality is likely caused because the informant already is upset. Once you've pissed someone off, I don't think you can reasonably expect them to keep your secrets.

This actually might be a very good argument for why seeing prostitutes is better than having affairs even if you don't believe that nonsense about it not being cheating if you pay for it. A prostitute has a professional obligation to assist you in your delusion, even after you stop seeing her. An affair, on the other hand, has no such obligation. I think most of us agree that if you're going to sleep around on someone you've made a commitment to, you are obligated to do everything possible to delude them. If you must fuck someone else, it seems like your only option is to pay for it.

justme · Mar 17, 2009

marcinny said:

Maybe, but it is her that caused it. Alternative world work nicely in science fiction and for compartmentalization, but they aren't really real. SA could (and should) feel pissed off at shithead for telling her secrets that she related in confidence. She should not, however, blame shithead for her sister's pain. That's all her.

justme · Mar 17, 2009

Thorn said:

This must be one of those delusions whose consequences you might have to live with!

justme · Mar 17, 2009

marcinny said:

Well, yeah.

To the extent that UG has any magic it's because it creates interactions between johns and women. They force us to reconsider, refine, and sometimes change our positions. Without the sex-workers, we'd just be sitting around re-hashing the same ideas over and over in a never-ending spiral of self-gratification. Gee, sex-workers keep us from mental masturbation as well.

(or at least engage in mutual, mental jacking-off)

justlooking · Mar 17, 2009

justme said:

If this is real rather than a hypothetical for purposes of explanation and argument, congratulations.

justme · Mar 17, 2009

Thanks. In some ways, it's this change that has me back here, I think. Let's see if I can sabotage everything as an unintended consequence!

On the subject of condiments...

Thorn

marcinny

SubmissiveAngel

SubmissiveAngel

Thorn

Thorn

SubmissiveAngel

marcinny

SubmissiveAngel

marcinny

Thorn

Thorn

SubmissiveAngel

justlooking

justme

homo economicus

justme

homo economicus

justme

homo economicus

justme

homo economicus

justlooking

justme

homo economicus